35 ^ 
BRITISH BIRDS* 
GADWALL, 
OR GRAY. 
{^Anas JlreperUi Lin.— Chipeau^ BufF.) 
The Gadwall is lefs than the Mallard, meafuring 
about nineteen inches in length, and twenty-three 
in breadth. The bill is flat, black, and,two inches 
long, from the tip to tl\e comers of the mouth : 
the head, and upper part of the neck, are of a ru- 
fous brown colour, lighted: on the throat and 
cheeks, and finely fpeckled and dotted all over with 
black and brown : the feathers on the lower part of 
the neck, breaft, and flioulders, look like fcales, 
beautifully margined and eroded with curved black 
and white lines : thofe of the back, fcapulars, and 
fides, are brown, marked tranfverfely with narrow- 
er waved ftreaks of a dufky colour : the belly and 
thighs are dingy white, more or lefs fprinkled with 
grey: the lower part of the back dark brown; 
rump and vent black \ and the tail afli, edged with 
white. The ridge and lefler coverts of the wing 
are of a pale rufous brown, croffed obliquely by the 
beauty-fpot, which, is a tri* coloured bar of pur- 
plifli red, white, and black : the greater quills are 
dufky : legs orange red. The wings of the female 
are barred like thofe of the male, but the colours 
are of a much duller caft, and her bread:, inftead of 
his beautiful markings, is only plain brown, fpotted 
with black. 
